PSFLab
A powerful, easy-to-use computational laboratory for exploring and visualizing vectorial point spread functions.
Free for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Point spread functions, calculated exactly.
PSFLab models the real optics of your microscope — arbitrary polarization, layered media, and a variety of imaging optics — and shows you the result as it computes, live.
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Version 3.0 main features – with many more added in version 3.6!
- Easy-to-use graphical user interface with tab-like navigation that fits smaller laptop screens
- Automatically notifies the user when a new version update is available
- Continuous image update while PSF calculation is in progress
- Rigorous, vectorial theory gives access to all electric field components
- Displays intensity, individual field components, or squared field components
- Accounts for collimated, monochromatic illumination light with Gaussian or flat intensity profile
- Polarization of illumination light can be chosen freely (linear, elliptic, or circular)
- Applies to both low and high numerical aperture objectives
- Correctly predicts aberrations due to refractive indices (RI) or coverslip thickness that differ from the objective’s design parameters
- Up to three stratified layers can be defined (immersion medium or air, coverslip, sample medium)
- Set up multiple cycles of calculations with increasing resolution
- Various display options (linear/logarithmic intensity scale, different colormaps, colorbar on/off)
- Automatic and regular data backup feature
- Single-click access to basic statistical parameters (Min/Max, FWHM etc.)
- Export PSF data to Matlab, HDF5, or ASCII-text data files
- Save figure to various image file formats